Systems and methods for bill pay with credit card funding

ABSTRACT

An Internet based bill payment system and method is provided that allows a consumer to push payments and/or information to any payee from the consumer&#39;s credit card account. One embodiment of the invention allows the customer to make a payment to any payee from an enterprise credit card or any other credit account of the enterprise, referred to as “Bill Pay advance.” One embodiment of the invention is provided which allows an enterprise&#39;s consumer credit card customers to sign up for and use the enterprise&#39;s bill pay advance system, whether or not the consumer has a demand deposit account (DDA) account. The invention allows the customer to designate either source of funds for payment and for any payee they choose to pay. One embodiment of the invention offers an interchange push methodology with customer choice of the payment source of funds and intelligent routing.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a divisional of U.S. Ser. No. 11/104,959,entitled “System and Method for Bill Pay With Credit Card Funding,”filed Apr. 12, 2005, which claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 60/562,854, entitled “System and Method for BillPay with Credit Card Funding,” filed Apr. 16, 2004, both of which areincorporated herein in their entirety by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

The invention relates generally to bill payment systems. Moreparticularly, the invention relates to a Internet based bill paymentsystem allowing a consumer to push payment to a payee, such as amerchant, from the consumer's credit card account, regardless of whetheror not the payee accepts credit card payments.

2. Description of the Prior Art

Current online bill payment systems such as, for example, Wells Fargo'sBill Pay service, allow a customer to make a bill payment to a payeewhere the bill payment is funded from a designated demand depositaccount (DDA) at the financial institution where the customer has anaccount. This is referred to herein as the bill pay method. Regardingcredit card payments, it is known that a payee that accepts credit cardpayments is required to pay a charge to the payee's acquiring bank(acquirer) to settle payment received via an accepted credit cardpayment by way of a card association network and association's set ofrules. This results in a portion of the charge paid by the payee to theacquirer being passed back to the customer's credit card issuing bank(issuer) with such payment to the issuer being known as interchange.This is referred to herein as the interchange method.

One current methodology for completing such type of bill paymenttransaction includes a consumer periodically transferring money to theconsumer's DDA account via a variety of ways. For example, the consumercan transfer money using an online transfer to the DDA, the consumer candeposit a credit card access check to the DDA account, and the consumercan take a cash advance and then deposit such advance to the DDA. Ineach of these scenarios, the consumer is typically charged an advancefee and a higher advance rate APR, as opposed to a purchase rate. Also,the consumer needs to make sure that the amount transferred is at leastequal to or in excess of the sum of all payments to be made. Suchcurrent process is unwieldy and likely to be expensive for the consumer.

Another example of a bill payment transaction is a PayPal-typetransaction and has disadvantages. According to this solution, amiddleman company is set up as a merchant to expedite payments from oneparty to another. For example, PayPal accepts funds from a payor andthen sends an email to the payee letting the payee know that funds havebeen deposited at PayPal. In order to receive the funds the payee musteither open an account with PayPal to receive an electronic payment orcontact PayPal to alternatively have a check issued to them. Payees mustalso pay a fee to receive payments if the source of the funds is acredit card account. The payee must have an email address. PayPal, as amerchant, charges the payee and/or the payor a fee to cover suchinterchange costs.

An example of an online transfer function as a source of funds is oneoffered by Wells Fargo. Such function allows a Wells Fargo customer totransfer money online from the customer's Wells Fargo credit cardaccount to that same customer's DDA account. The transfer is treated asa cash advance, which can be costly for the customer and if the fundsare to be used to make payments from Well Fargo's Bill Pay system, thetransfer needs to be in excess of the sum of all payments to be made.

It would be advantageous to allow an enterprise to offer enterpriseonline bill payment customers the option to choose an enterpriseconsumer credit card account, business credit card account, or othercredit product as a source for funding to make a payment in addition toor separate from the option to use a DDA or other deposit account as asource of funds. It would be further advantageous to create an Internetbased bill payment system which allows a consumer to use an advancemethodology that pushes payments, which can be a combination of specificamounts for each payment, to payees whether or not the payee acceptscredit card payments. It would be further advantageous for a consumer tomake multiple small advances from the consumer's credit card account inan exact amount of each payment desired. It would be furtheradvantageous to enable an enterprise to offer a bill payment advancemethodology, i.e. funded by credit account, with a lower or noper-transaction fee and a rate lower than typical advance rate APR's. Itwould be further advantageous to charge only a purchase rate and a loweror no transaction fees. It would further be advantageous to allow for aninterest rate grace period. It would be further advantageous to treat atransaction as an internal advance and not as a payment as if to amerchant. It would be further advantageous to provide a bill pay advancemethodology where an issuing bank and an acquiring bank do not have tobe the same bank or enterprise and where a card association networksettles the issuer and acquirer accounts including requiring interchangefee payments to the issuing bank.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An Internet based bill payment system and method is provided that allowsa consumer to use an advance methodology, which pushes payments and/orinformation to any payee from the consumer's credit card account. Oneembodiment of the invention allows the customer to make a payment to apayee from an enterprise credit card or any other credit account of theenterprise. The pushed payment made is for a specific amount for eachpayment and is made regardless of whether or not the payee acceptscredit card payments. Thus, the consumer can make multiple smalladvances from the consumer's credit card account in an exact amount ofeach payment desired. One embodiment of the invention is provided whichallows an enterprise's consumer credit card customers to sign up for anduse the enterprise's bill pay advance system, whether or not theconsumer has a demand deposit account (DDA) account. Another embodimentof the invention is provided where the customer has a DDA to allow amongother things the enterprise's DDA department to collect any Bill Payservice fees assessed as well as initially to enable the enterprise tokeep risk low by offering the service to relationship customers. Theinvention allows a customer to pay any payee with an amount of paymentand whereby such amount is charged to the customer's consumer creditcard account, referred to herein as “Bill Pay advance.” If the customerhas a DDA account, then invention allows the customer to designateeither source of funds for payment and for any payee they choose to pay,referred to herein as a DDA Bill Pay payment. One embodiment of theinvention offers an interchange push methodology with customer choice ofthe payment source of funds and intelligent routing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the entities of the invention and therespective interactions according to the invention;

FIG. 2, a schematic diagram of three options offered to a customeraccording to the invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing main components and the respectiverelationships of a transaction hub according to the invention;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of an embodiment of a non-interchange Bill Payadvance methodology according to the invention;

FIG. 5 a is a flow diagram of an embodiment of the bill pay advancemethodology using a credit card with interchange push according to theinvention;

FIG. 5 b is a flow diagram of an embodiment of the bill pay advancemethodology using a debit card with interchange push according to theinvention;

FIG. 6 is an example of a screen shot showing a credit card chosen forthe Payment Account according to the invention;

FIG. 7 is an example of a screen shot showing the Edit Payment tab wherethe Payment Account selection is a credit card according to theinvention;

FIG. 8 is an example of a screen shot showing a Status Update tabwherein the Financial Accounts include checking and credit card accountsaccording to the invention;

FIG. 9 is an example of a screen shot showing a Make Payment tab whereinthe Payment Account and Amount column includes credit and checkingaccounts according to the invention; and

FIG. 10 is an example of a screen shot showing three credit sources forfunding a Bill Payment advance and the pricing in effect at the time foreach payment source option, including a daily limit on the amount ofpayments to be scheduled for payment according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

An Internet based bill payment system and method is provided that allowsa consumer to use an advance methodology, which pushes payments and/orinformation to any payee from the consumer's credit card account. Oneembodiment of the invention allows the customer to make a payment to apayee from an enterprise credit card or any other credit account of theenterprise. The pushed payment made is for a specific amount for eachpayment and is made regardless of whether or not the payee acceptscredit card payments. Thus, the consumer can make multiple smalladvances from the consumer's credit card account in an exact amount ofeach payment desired. One embodiment of the invention is provided whichallows an enterprise's consumer credit card customers to sign up for anduse the enterprise's bill pay advance system, whether or not theconsumer has a demand deposit account (DDA) account. Another embodimentof the invention is provided where the customer has a DDA to allow amongother things the enterprise's DDA department to collect any Bill Payservice fees assessed as well as initially to enable the enterprise tokeep risk low by offering the service to relationship customers. Theinvention allows a customer to pay any payee with an amount of paymentand whereby such amount is charged to the customer's consumer creditcard account, referred to herein as “Bill Pay advance.” If the customerhas a DDA account, then invention allows the customer to designateeither source of funds for payment and for any payee they choose to pay,referred to herein as a DDA Bill Pay payment. One embodiment of theinvention offers an interchange push methodology with customer choice ofthe payment source of funds and intelligent routing.

It should be appreciated that the examples set forth herein are meant byway of example only and are not limiting. For example, while aparticular discussion herein uses a consumer credit card account, it iswell within the spirit and scope of the invention that other types ofcredit products, such as for example, a business credit card account,can be used as well.

It should further be appreciated that a debit card can also be referredto as a check card or as any vehicle that accesses the funds in the DDAor checking account in the manner described herein.

One embodiment of the invention can be described with reference to FIG.1, a schematic diagram of main entities of a bill pay advance withoutinterchange transaction and the respective interactions according to oneembodiment of the invention. A customer 100 signs up for a Bill Paymentservice (BPS) 102. The customer then either has or obtains a credit card112 from an issuer 104 affiliated with the BPS. The customer providespayment instructions 114 to the BPS 102 specifying advance payment fromthe credit card as a source of funds and/or other BPS acceptable sources110, such as lines of credit, brokerage, savings, and DDA. The BPS 102then obtains the advance funds 116 from the affiliated issuer 104 inaddition to funds from the other BPS funding sources 110. In oneembodiment of the invention, the BPS 102 then consolidates instructionsfrom multiple customers to optimize requests for funds, such as forexample in batch processing. The BPS then sends the funds 118 to payees108 using optimal payment routing. The BPS further services thecustomer, including providing reporting. It should be appreciated thatno payee interchange is paid. The payees 108 receive payment of funds118. It should be appreciated that a payee does not need to acceptcredit cards of any kind. A payee is not required to accept email, openany type of account, or make contact with either the BPS 102 or customer100. Further, the payee is not limited to having to be paid byelectronically by a third party financial gateway, nor is the payeerequired to be a member of a particular association. The payee mayaccept credit cards for some types of transactions, but not acceptcredit cards as a form of payment for this particular type oftransaction. The credit card issuer 104 that is affiliated with the BPS102 provides advances as requested 116. A credit card issuer 104 isassociated as typical with an Association or Credit card company such asVisa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover 106 that creates amongother things the rules that issuers and payees, e.g. merchants, mustfollow to be an issuer or accepter of that Association's credit cardproducts.

One embodiment of the invention can be described with reference to FIG.2, a schematic diagram of three options offered to a customer. Option 1202 offers Bill Pay advance to the customer, whereby the customer isallowed to pay bills from the customer's affiliated credit card accountas described in FIG. 1. Option 2 204 offers interchange push to thecustomer, whereby the customer can choose to make a payment to a payeefrom the customer's credit card account or debit card account and thetransaction-related information is pushed to the payee as an interchangeeligible transaction, for the payee to process. Option 3 206 is a hybridof Option 1 and Option 2. Option 3 offers a both Option 1 and Option 2in parallel with customer choice and intelligent routing mechanisms.

Regarding pricing, in one embodiment of the invention, currentpurchasing terms include a grace period, but in another embodiment ofthe invention, no grace period is allowed. In another embodiment of theinvention, there are no per-transaction fees.

Regarding rewards, in one embodiment of the invention, rewards pointsare used to promote consumer use. In one embodiment of the invention,rewards are not offered for each dollar spent. The implementation can bedetermined based on the appropriate analysis of the enterprise.

It should be appreciated that with the interchange push methodology, thecustomer's experience in requesting the payment to be made is the same.The customer's credit card account is debited directly by the issuerwith Option #1. There can be a delay in the customer's credit cardaccount being debited in Option #2 because the payee requests paymentthrough the payee's acquirer before the payment amount is debited fromthe customer's credit card account.

In one embodiment of the invention, the transaction follows the sameprocess currently used in an enterprise online transfer function to movefunds out of the enterprise's credit card account. However, instead ofdirecting the transfer of funds to an enterprise DDA, the funds areultimately directed to the payee designated by the customer. In oneembodiment of the invention, interchange money is handled in the sameway it is handled for a regular purchase transaction. In anotherembodiment of the invention, the transaction is an interchange pushtransaction, where the payee, accepting credit and/or debit cards,accepts as payment a transaction payment from the Bill payment system,in the same way payment is accepted for any other credit and/or debitcard purchase. That is, such payment for transaction involvesinterchange payments to the issuer. See FIG. 5.

One embodiment of the invention can be described with reference to FIG.3, a schematic diagram showing main components and the respectiverelationships of a transaction hub according to the invention. A BillPay advance system 302 of an enterprise provides payments in variousformats, such as formats required to pay eBills 304, by other electronicconfigurations in which the Bill Pay advance system and the payee caneffect payments electronically 306, in paper 308 format where typicallya paper check is sent to the payee on behalf of the customer, and byother network configurations 310, e.g. where Bill Pay contracts withthird parties, such as CheckFree by CheckFree Corporation, to effectpayments to the payees. Typical users of the Bill Pay system areconsumers 312 and small businesses 314 although other size businessescould be customers as well in the same manner. It should be appreciatedthat medium and larger businesses could leverage this methodology aswell. Typical entry points into the Bill Pay system are online means316, by branch office means 318, over the phone 320, and the like.Typical funding sources are DDA 322 and savings accounts 324. Oneembodiment of the invention provides affiliated credit card accounts 326as a funding source and pushes appropriate funds to the payee. Anotherembodiment of the invention incorporating the interchange push techniqueprovides credit card accounts 326 and/or debit card accounts 328 as afunding source and pushes information to the payee. Typical informationprovided is an account number and verifying information such as accountexpiration date, customer name, etc. Then the payee uses thisinformation to process the transaction through the payee's acquiringbank and pays fees to do so including interchange which ends up with theissuer of the credit or debit card. It should be appreciated that anytype of enterprise account, such as line of credit 330 and brokerage 332can be used as a source of funding.

Details of Option 1, Bill Pay advance, can be described with referenceto FIG. 4, an example flow diagram of an embodiment of thenon-interchange Bill Pay advance methodology according to the invention.A customer 404, having both an account on a Bill Pay advance system anda credit card account, instructs the Bill Pay advance system 406 to makepayment to any payee 402 using the customer's credit card. The schedulefor payment can be a scheduled one-time payment or a periodic recurringpayment and the like. It should be appreciated that a payee could be amerchant, a biller, a neighbor to whom the customer owes payment, arelative, and so on. It should further be appreciated that the accountsare owned and managed by a same enterprise, such as for example, WellsFargo (WF), which is the example enterprise depicted in FIG. 4. The BillPay advance system 406 signals a request to the affiliated credit cardprocessor 408 for a Bill Pay advance. The credit card processor 408remits an appropriate amount of funds to designated accounts in the BillPay advance system 406, such as for example, a suspense account and/orsettlement account. Upon receiving the funds, the Bill Pay advancesystem 406 remits payment by way of a Bill Payment processor 410. TheBill Payment processor 410 remits payment to the payee 402 by way of thenormal Bill Payment processing. From the payee's perspective, the payee402 receives payment as it expects to receive payment and is notnecessarily aware that the payment was funded by the payor's affiliatedcredit card account. It should be appreciated that the credit cardsystem 408 continues to exchange customer credit card information asnecessary, such as for informational and statement purposes, with a CardAssociation Network 412 or other entities that assist with accountservicing, as a part of normal business practices. It should further beappreciated that optionally and as depicted in FIG. 4, the payee 402 canprovide a bill to the customer 404 (Step 1.) and thereby initiate theprocess.

Then, at the end of the customer's credit card cycle or at other timesin general when a customer makes payments or deposits, the customer 404remits payments including credit card bill payments, credit cardinterest, and credit card fees to the credit card system 408 as usual.It should be appreciated that the customer can pay the customer's creditcard bill any way desired except by way of such bill pay system wherethe funds are sourced from the same account being paid. In oneembodiment of the invention, the customer cannot pay an enterprisecredit account with a credit product issued by the same enterprise. Inanother embodiment of the invention, the customer cannot pay the creditcard bill with a bill payment from the same credit card account.

Some of the clear advantages of the non-interchange Bill Pay advancemethodology discussed herein are as follows. Advantages for the customerinclude: (1) access to credit line and possible float opportunities; (2)ability to pay any payee regardless of whether the payee accepts creditcards or not; and (3) ability and greater flexibility to control thetiming and changes to the amount of payments. For example, if a customersigns up for recurring payments directly with a merchant and interchangeis involved, then it can be difficult for a customer to subsequentlychange the instructions to the merchant. For example if a customer signsup for recurring payments to be made to a fitness center each month andthen later closes or changes his or her credit card account, then it maybe difficult to enforce the payee to discontinue debiting the customer'scredit card account that has been closed or changed. The credit cardissuer then continues to bill the customer for such charges. Incontrast, with the inventive Bill Pay advance methodology herein, thecustomer controls when and if payments are made to the payee. Suchcontrol of payments is invisible to the payee. Advantages for the payeeinclude: (1) no interchange fee and (2) normal bill payment experience,i.e. the payee is not required to be set up for credit and/or debit cardprocessing. Advantages for the enterprise include: (1) because no newpartners are required, both (a) speed of implementation increases, (b)credit card processing rules do not need to be changed, and (c) thirdparty set ups are avoided; (2) large biller transaction volume isimmediately eligible for processing; (3) synergies are generated forfuture funding sources for Bill Pay, e.g. business, home equity lines ofcredit, and the like; and (4) is a driver for Bill Pay service loyalty.

Details of Option 2, interchange push via credit card or debit cardprocessing, can be described with reference to FIG. 5 (FIGS. 5 a and 5b), a flow diagram of an embodiment of the bill pay advance methodologywith interchange push according to the invention.

Referring to FIG. 5 a, a customer 504 of an enterprise, such as WellsFargo (WF), having an account in the enterprise's bill pay advancesystem and having an enterprise credit card account instructs the billpay advance system 506 to make a payment with the credit card 514. Inthis embodiment of the invention, the transaction is routed as aninterchange eligible transaction. One advantage to the customer is thatthe customer may be eligible for rewards points if the customer is amember of a rewards program. The transaction is processed through theinterchange eligible purchase method as follows. The bill pay advancesystem pushes customer and billing information, such as card informationand authorization, to a partner processing service 508, such as WellsFargo, Visa International Service Association (VISA), or MasterCardInternational Incorporate (MasterCard). The partner processing service508 then pushes the credit card-related information to the payee 502.One embodiment of the invention uses screen scrape technology with thepayee's web site to fill the payee's payment information form on thepayee's web site on behalf of the payor, i.e. customer. Then, the payee502 uses the inputted information to process the transaction through thepayee's financial institution or acquirer 510 through normal channels.The acquirer 510 then remits payment to the payee 502 as well as remitsan interchange fee through the card association network 512 to thecredit card issuer 514. It should be appreciated that in this embodimentof the invention, the transaction is effected by way of the bill payadvance system 506 leveraging a partner's processing system 508. Inanother embodiment of the invention, the partner processor 508,incorporating certain functionality such as provided by Yodlee.com Inc.,scans the Internet for the merchant's web site, where the merchantsupports interchange eligible payments. The bill pay advance system 506then leverages the merchant's web site system on behalf of the customer504 to effect the payment as an interchange eligible purchasetransaction, such as by screen scrape technology as mentionedhereinabove. The customer 504 pays card payments, interest, and fees asusual to the credit card account 514.

Referring to FIG. 5 b, a customer 504 of an enterprise, such as WellsFargo (WF), having an account in the enterprise's bill pay advancesystem and having an enterprise debit card account instructs the billpay advance system 506 to make a payment with the debit card account orwith the DDA 516. In this embodiment of the invention, the transactionis routed as an interchange eligible transaction. One advantage to thecustomer is that the customer may be eligible for rewards points if thecustomer is a member of a rewards program. The transaction is processedthrough the interchange eligible purchase method as follows. The billpay advance system pushes customer and billing information, such asdebit card information and authorization, to a partner processingservice 508, such as Wells Fargo, Visa International Service Association(VISA), or MasterCard International Incorporate (MasterCard). Thepartner processing service 508 then pushes the debit card-relatedinformation to the payee 502. One embodiment of the invention usesscreen scrape technology with the payee's web site to fill the payee'spayment information form on the payee's web site on behalf of the payor,i.e. customer. Then, the payee 502 uses the inputted information toprocess the transaction through the payee's financial institution oracquirer 510 through normal channels. The acquirer 510 then remitspayment to the payee 502 as well as remits an interchange fee throughthe card association network 512 to the debit card issuer 514. It shouldbe appreciated that in this embodiment of the invention, the transactionis effected by way of the bill pay advance system 506 leveraging apartner's processing system 512. In another embodiment of the invention,the partner processor 508, incorporating certain functionality such asprovided by Yodlee.com Inc., scans the Internet for the merchant's website, where the merchant supports interchange eligible payments. Thebill pay advance system 506 then leverages the merchant's web sitesystem on behalf of the customer 504 to effect the payment as aninterchange eligible purchase transaction, such as by screen scrapetechnology as mentioned hereinabove. The customer 504 makes deposits tothe customer's associated DDA account to cover amount of advance billpay advance payment to the debit account 516.

In one embodiment of the invention and for eligible transactions, adebit card is made the default even when payment by DDA is chosen by thecustomer 504. Such default may be advantageous to the enterprise becausethe enterprise can make more money via interchange, i.e. when a debitcard is the payment vehicle versus the DDA directly. In this embodimentof the invention, the transaction is routed as an interchange eligibletransaction. To the customer's perspective, such funds are still beingdebited from the DDA, however the debit card is used.

It should be appreciated that optionally, the payee 502 can submit abill to the customer 504 and hence initiate the process.

It should further be appreciated that the bill pay advance system usesintelligent routing to identify that interchange eligible payments canbe made to this payee either by way of a processing service 508 or byway of the Card Association network 512, including, for example,technology which scans the Internet on behalf of the customer andtechnology which fills in information in a merchant's web site. Inanother embodiment of the invention the bill pay advance system 506 or apartner processing service 508 searches the Internet to find merchantsthat permit customers to make payments. Thus, the bill pay advancesystem 506 and the partner processing service 508 act on behalf of thecustomer 504 to access and submit payments by leveraging the Internetinfrastructure established by the payee 502.

One advantage of the bill pay advance with interchange push methodologyis that the transaction is treated like a credit and/or debit cardpurchase versus an advance. Consumer credit card account purchases aretypically subject to more favorable regulatory protections, usually havelower interest rates than advances and are more often eligible forpoints in reward programs. Debit cards that obtain rewards points arealso eligible for such points as may be applicable.

At the end of the customer's credit and/or debit card cycle or at othertimes in general when a customer makes payments or deposits, thecustomer 504 remits payments including credit bill and/or debit cardpayments, credit card interest, and credit and/or debit card fees to thecredit card system 514 and/or the debit card system 516 as usual. Itshould be appreciated that the customer can pay the customer's creditand/or debit card account any way desired except by way of such bill payadvance system 506 where the funds are sourced from the same accountbeing paid. In one embodiment of the invention, the customer cannot payan enterprise credit and/or debit account with a credit product or debitcard issued by the same enterprise. In another embodiment of theinvention, the customer cannot pay the credit and/or debit card accountwith a bill payment from the same card account.

Some of the clear advantages of the interchange via credit cardmethodology discussed herein include the following. Advantages for thecustomer include: (1) a customer has access to credit line and float;(2) it is likely that a customer can receive rewards points; (3) thepurchase interest rate would apply which is typically lower than anadvance interest rate; (4) such purchase type transaction also typicallygets a grace period and no transaction fee whereas for an advancetransaction the customer gets no grace period, a higher interest rate,and a transaction fee; and (5) regulatory protections for credit cardpurchase transactions can be greater than for advances. Advantages forthe payee include: (1) the payee enjoys greater payment flexibility forpayee's customers. Advantages for the enterprise include: (1)interchange fees are earned; (2) additional income is received fromhigher revolving credit card balances; (3) Bill Pay processing costs maydecrease because the Bill Pay system doesn't move the money, the payeeprocesses the transaction, and the Bill Pay system provides instructionsto the payee; (4) is a driver for Bill Pay service loyalty; and (5)provides additional benefits for the rewards program because is anotherway to earn rewards points.

Some of the clear advantages of the interchange via debit cardmethodology discussed herein include the following. Advantages for thecustomer include: (1) experience is seamless to the customer as moniesare debited directly from DDA and (2) receipt of reward points islikely. Advantages for the payee include: (1) greater paymentflexibility for customers. Advantages for the enterprise include: (1)interchange fees are earned; (2) Bill Pay processing costs may be lowerthan today; (3) facilitates a large eligible customer base;approximately 95% of all consumers and approximately 45% of all businesscustomers have debit cards; (4) a large number of interchange eligibletransactions are made if the debit card is made the default Bill Payfunding mechanism, instead of DDA; and 5) is a driver for Bill Payservice loyalty. An advantage for the card association network is morenetwork transactions.

An Exemplary Bill Pay with Card Funding System

One embodiment of the invention is described with reference to WellsFargo's Bill Pay service. The Bill Pay service offers its customers theability to select which of their eligible funding accounts they wish touse to pay their bills. In the initial Bill Pay system, only checkingaccounts (demand deposit accounts, DDA's) can be used for this purpose.

Hereinbelow describes how to add the ability for Bill Pay customers touse the following types of accounts to fund payments to eligible payees:

-   -   Wells Fargo Credit Card Accounts (System of Record-FDR); and    -   Wells Fargo BusinessLine^(SM)Accounts (SOR-FDR)

Other funding account types may be added in future projects.

The Typical Bill Pay Environment

Customer Enrollment

In the environment, customers (consumers and businesses) who have signedup for online account access and who have at least one eligible checkingaccount may enroll in the Bill Pay service. Customers must accept a BillPay Online Access Agreement (OAA) and an eSign agreement in order to usethe service.

Online Customer Service (OCS) Bankers may assist customers by executingcertain steps of the enrollment process, but they are not permitted toaccept these agreements on behalf of customers.

Customer Experience

Customers have the opportunity to select the funding account they wishto use for making payments at several points during their Bill Payonline experience:

-   -   They select a default Funding/Service=Fee Account when        establishing or updating their user profile within Bill Pay. The        default Funding/Service Fee Account is the source of funds for        making all payments, unless overridden by the customer for a        specific payee or a specific payment. The default        Funding/Service Fee Account also serves as the account that is        charged for any applicable Bill Pay service fees. If a customer        does not select a default Funding/Service Fee Account within 45        days of enrollment, Bill Pay assigns one using an automated        process.    -   When adding or editing payees using the service's Manage Payees        function, customers with more than one eligible funding account        may select a funding account, other than the default, for        specific payees.    -   When making scheduling payments, customers may specify a        one-time funding account, other than the one they have        associated with the payee.

At each of these points, customers have the ability to select thedesired funding account from a drop-down list of their eligible checkingaccounts. OCS Bankers may also make these selections on the customer'sbehalf, using the Customer Service Application (CSA).

In addition to the funding account, customers and bankers specify thepayment frequency, i.e. one-time or recurring, schedule and amount foreach payment. Currently, both the Bill Pay Customer User Interface (CUI)and CSA limit individual payments to a maximum of $50,000.

Batch Processing

Customers may change their payment information, including their choiceof funding account, until the cut-off time, e.g. 7 p.m. PT, Mondaythrough Friday, excluding non-business days, on the scheduled paymentdate, after which Bill Pay batch processing begins.

The Bill Pay service uses a good funds model to authorize payments.Account status and available balance are verified prior to releasingeach payment.

-   -   Bill Pay sends payment information to a system area, ODS/PAS,        via a batch file, to debit funds from the customer's checking        account. ODS/PAS responds to let Bill Pay know if there are any        failures in debiting funds from the customer's account. Certain        failures, e.g. NSF, are retried a second time on the next        business day, while others, e.g. account closed, result in the        payment being cancelled immediately.    -   As a result of Bill Pay On-Us Settlement process, there are two        paths along which Bill Pay may send payment information and        receive feedback on funds availability: the new DZ-EPAY path,        for selected internal payees, and the ODS/PAS path, for all        other payees.

After receiving feedback that the customer's funding account is debitedsuccessfully, e.g. via a status file from ODS/PAS or DZ, Bill Payreleases payment information to the appropriate endpoint, i.e. paymentprocessor, for fulfillment to the payee.

A credit to the Bill Pay Wholesale DDA account offsets the customerfunding account debits for payments destined to external payees. Itshould be appreciated that with the implementation of On-Us Settlement,selected internal payees are credited directly via the DZ-EPAY process.

An Online Customer Service (OCS) Accounting and Control system areamanages the movement of funds from the Bill Pay Wholesale DDA account toeach endpoint, using the agreed mechanism for each endpoint. Bill Payproduces the reports that are used by OCS Accounting and Control forreconciliation and settlement.

In subsequent processing cycles, Bill Pay receives feedback from eachpayment processor, indicating the success or failure of posting eachpayment. Payments that could not be applied are credited back to thecustomer's funding account through transactions automatically created byBill Pay, or manually entered by OCS. The Bill Pay Wholesale DDA accountreceives the debit that offsets the customer credit.

Customer Service

Customers and OCS Bankers may access information on the status ofpayments through Bill Pay in-session notices, email alerts, onlinestatus displays and online reports. OCS Bankers also may access statusinformation on the Payment Detail History and Payee Audit Historyscreens in a customer service representative system area (hereinreferred to as CSA.

Bill Pay debits and credits are identified as such on the customer'sfunding account statements and online transaction history.

Customers may contact Wells Fargo with questions or issues regarding theBill Pay service, either in person, by phone, or online using acustomer-submitted payment inquiry form. OCS Bankers may also submit apayment inquiry form on the customer's behalf. Payment inquiries aredirected to OCS team members, who are responsible for tracking casesusing CCM OCTS, submitting adjustments, and notifying customers of caseresolution.

A Bill Pay Advance Environment

The Bill Pay Advance environment gives Bill Pay customers new fundingaccount choices. To provide the best customer experience, theenvironment parallels the existing environment. Differences between theBill Pay funded by DDA (referred to hereinbelow as the currentenvironment) and the Bill Pay advance funded by card or other creditproducts with or without interchange (referred to hereinbelow as theproposed environment) are outlined hereinbelow.

Eligibility for Card Funding

Three dimensions of Card Funding eligibility, i.e. customer eligibility,account eligibility and payee eligibility, are introduced in thefollowing sections, with more detail provided later in the document.

-   -   The section on customer eligibility describes which Bill Pay        customers are able to use their Credit Card or BusinessLine^(SM)        accounts to make payments.    -   The section on account eligibility describes which Credit        Card/BusinessLine^(SM) accounts may be used to fund payments.    -   The section on payee eligibility describes which payees may or        may not be paid from Credit Card/BusinessLine^(SM) accounts.

Customer Eligibility for Card Funding

Card Funding is available to Consumer and Business Bill Pay customerswith eligible card funding accounts and appropriate accountrelationships.

-   -   Card Funding is activated by default for all eligible Business-        and Consumer-branded Bill Pay customers.    -   The CIS Relationship Code table is updated to make Credit Card        account holders, i.e. Sole Borrowers, Primary Borrowers and        Secondary Borrowers, valid for Bill Pay.

Account Eligibility for Card Funding

When the embodiment of the invention is implemented, eligible WellsFargo Credit Card and BusinessLine^(SM) accounts are included in thelist of Bill Pay funding accounts, if they are open and in goodstanding, i.e. not delinquent or over-limit.

Payee Eligibility for Card Funding

When the embodiment of the invention is implemented, customers with theappropriate funding accounts are able to choose between DDA and CardFunding accounts for most payees.

Some payees will not be eligible for card-funded payments, due to riskmanagement or other business considerations. Bill Pay controlseligibility at the merchant level; the eligibility of all payeesassociated with a merchant is the same as that merchant's eligibility.

At implementation, the only ineligible merchants are Wells Fargo creditaccounts, i.e. cards, lines, and loans.

-   -   Because it is expected that the list of ineligible payees is        fairly static, the Sustaining Engineering team is responsible        for maintaining the list within the Bill Pay application, until        such time as an update capability is implemented within the        Online Admin Tool (OAT). The OAT implementation is outside the        scope of this discussion, and it is not a dependency of this        embodiment of the invention. The Bill Pay Product Office works        with Payee Management to identify and communicate to Sustaining        Engineering any changes to this list.    -   Merchant/payee eligibility for Card Funding is not visible or        modifiable within CUI or CSA.    -   The Bill Pay FAQs are updated to disclose to customers which        payees are ineligible to be paid via Card Funding.

Customer Enrollment

As is the case today, to enroll in the Bill Pay service, customers musthave an eligible DDA account to serve as the default Funding/Service Feeaccount.

The Bill Pay section of the OAA shall be revised to reflect the additionof Card Funding capabilities. No changes to the eSign agreement arerequired.

There shall be no additional enrollment process for Card Funding.Customers with eligible funding accounts are automatically set up to useCard Funding.

Introducing Card Funding

Card Funding Enabled by Default

At the implementation of the embodiment of the invention, Bill Payactivates the Card Funding feature by default for both new and existingBill Pay customers.

With Card Funding enabled, customers see their eligible Card Fundingaccounts in the Payment Account drop-down lists, as appropriate. If acustomer has no eligible Card Funding accounts, only eligible checkingaccounts are displayed in the Payment Account drop-down lists.

Prior to a customer's making a different payment method selection, thedrop-down menu displays the customer's default Funding/Service Feeaccount.

Card Funding Splash Page

As part of the promotional strategy for the feature, existing Bill Paycustomers may receive an Enterprise Customer Profile and Referrals(ECPR) targeted marketing offer with information about Bill Pay CardFunding. The feature is announced via a WIB-hosted splash page. SinceCard Funding is a standard Bill Pay feature, customers do not have theoption of accepting or rejecting the ECPR offer. Instead, there is acontinue (or similar) button followed by Bill Pay's standard screennavigation.

Because the splash page does not drive specific Bill Pay behavior,testing of the splash page shall be handled separately and shall beconsidered out of scope for this discussion.

Card Funding Terms and Conditions

Customers shall be notified of the fees and terms associated with makingpayments from their Card Funding accounts.

-   -   Terms and conditions shall be included in marketing materials        including ECPR splash pages.    -   Fees and terms shall be displayed to customers during the Make        Payment process whenever card-funded transactions are scheduled.        See hereinbelow for more information.    -   Customers shall be advised of any changes to Card Funding terms        and conditions via email alerts and in-session notices generated        by Bill Pay. See hereinbelow for more information.

Customer Experience

Payment Methods

As is currently the case, customers, including OCS Bankers on theirbehalf, select the funding account for making payments at various pointsduring their Bill Pay online experience.

-   -   The Bill Pay in-session enrollment process is modified to ensure        that only eligible checking accounts may be selected as default        Funding/Service Fee Accounts for the Bill Pay service. Customers        are not able to select a Credit Card or BusinessLine^(SM)        account as the default Funding/Service Fee Account.        -   This does not preclude the implementation of other default            funding account types.        -   As is currently the case, if the customer does not specify a            default Funding/Service Fee Account within 45 days of            enrolling in Bill Pay, then an eligible checking account is            systematically assigned. The get_pm (get payment method)            process is modified to permit only checking accounts to be            assigned as the default Funding/Service Fee account.    -   When presented with the opportunity to select a payee-specific        or payment-specific funding account within the Add Payees,        Manage Payees and Make Payments functions, customers and OCS        Bankers see eligible card funding accounts, in addition to        checking accounts, in the drop-down lists for eligible payees.        -   Card funding accounts are not displayed in the drop-down            payment account list if the payee is ineligible for Card            Funding. It should be appreciated that when a user enters a            payee manually, if the automated scrub and match logic then            associates the payee with a merchant that is ineligible for            Card Funding, then the user interface must detect this and            prevent the user from scheduling or saving card-funded            payments to this payee.    -   As is the case today, the funding accounts presented to the        customer are filtered based on the Bill Pay brand; i.e. Business        Bill Pay customers may select from among their eligible business        and consumer accounts, but consumer Bill Pay customers do not        see their business accounts in the list of eligible funding        accounts.

Screens, reports, alerts and notices that currently display fundingaccount information are modified to display checking or card/creditaccount information, as appropriate.

Making Payments

Per-Transaction Limits.

When making payments, customers specify the payment frequency, e.g.one-time, recurring or automatic, and schedule an amount for eachpayment. For risk management purposes, the user interface limitsindividual payments to a maximum of $50,000 in today's environment.

In the proposed environment, the Bill Pay user interface applies thefollowing product-specific per-transaction limits in Table A.

TABLE A Per Transaction Funding Account Type Limit Checking $50,000Consumer Credit Card $10,000 Business Credit Card $10,000BusinessLine^(SM) $50,000

-   -   The CUI checks payments added or edited during the current Bill        Pay payment scheduling session, regardless of the date that the        payment is to be made, against these limits.    -   Bill Pay uses the Product/Sub-product Code table to determine        the funding account type.    -   Customers are notified of the limit in an on-screen message,        which varies by funding account type, and are required to edit        their payment(s) if any limits are exceeded.

It should be appreciated that in addition to the per-transaction limitsimposed by the Bill Pay CUI, there are daily funding account limitsspecific to each type of Card Funding account. As described hereinbelow,transactions that would cause these daily limits to be exceeded are notmemo-posted by DZ; instead, they are returned to Bill Pay and retriedthe next business day.

Card Funding Fees and Terms.

Current Card Funding fees and terms are displayed to customers duringthe Make Payment process whenever card-funded transactions arescheduled.

When the customer clicks “submit” to schedule his or her payments, ifany card-funded transactions are scheduled, Bill Pay displays a newscreen that includes the fees and terms associated with the selectedfunding accounts only. Terms that apply to funding accounts not selectedby the customer are not be displayed.

The customer has the option to accept the terms and complete thescheduling of the transactions or to edit the payments, which returnsthe customer to the prior screen to select different Payment Accounts.

Batch Processing—Payments

As is the case today, customers are able to change their paymentinformation until the cut-off time, e.g. 7 p.m. PT Monday throughFriday, excluding non-business days, on the scheduled payment date,after which Bill Pay batch processing begins.

The DZ-EPAY path implemented by the Bill Pay On-Us Settlement project isreplicated and modified to provide a new processing path that handlescard-funded payments, i.e. Bill Pay advances. In keeping with Bill Pay'sgood funds model, account status and available credit are verifiedbefore releasing payments to the endpoints.

At a high level, the processing is as follows:

-   -   As is the case today, Bill Pay batch processing verifies that        payments do not exceed the per-transaction limits indicated in        the Making Payments section. Because such transactions should be        blocked by the CUI, this edit is a precautionary measure. As is        the case with today's edit for DDA-funded payments, Bill Pay        silently cancels, i.e. without a notice or alert being sent, any        transactions failing this edit.    -   For each Bill Pay Advance, Bill Pay sends DZ the customer's card        funding account number as the account to be debited, i.e. the        “from” account. The Bill Pay Wholesale DDA account receives the        offsetting credit, i.e. the “to” account.

It should be appreciated that payees that are associated to endpoint DZare ineligible to be paid from Card Funding accounts. In creatingpayment files, Bill Pay ensures that DZ does not receive transactionsfrom a Card Funding account to an on-us settlement payee. Forcard-funded payments, the to account is always the Wholesale DDAaccount.

-   -   In creating the Card Funding transaction file for DZ, Bill Pay        provides the data elements needed for DZ to sort transactions        for each funding account in the following sequence: transactions        being presented a second time, e.g. previously rejected due to        NSF, are sorted ahead of those being presented for the first        time; within each of those groupings, transactions for a given        Card Funding account are sorted in descending dollar amount        order within payment type, such as automatic payments first,        followed by recurring payments, followed by one-time payments.

It should be appreciated that the sort sequence for card-fundedtransactions may be different from the order in which DDA-fundedtransactions are processed. Regulation CC and the laws of individualstates dictate the sequence in which DDA transactions are processed; insome states, transactions are processed from low to high dollar amount,while in others, they are processed from high to low. Because there isno such requirement for credit card transactions, the sort sequencespecified in the bullet above applies to all card-funded payments.

-   -   Each transaction is processed as described below. Note that if        there are multiple transactions for a single card funding        account, and an earlier higher-dollar transaction is rejected        due to insufficient credit, subsequent lower-dollar payments        could still process successfully.        -   DZ keeps a running total of the dollar amount of card-funded            transactions successfully memo-posted for each Card Funding            account as it processes transactions for that account.            -   DZ checks the daily funding account limit for the                applicable Card Funding account type, for example,                Consumer Credit Card, Business Credit Card, and                BusinessLine^(SM), and does not attempt to memo-post                transactions that would cause the applicable daily limit                to be exceeded.            -   In those cases, DZ returns the transactions to Bill Pay                in the DZ-EPAY Card Funding Payments Status File, using                a new return code (10009) indicating that the                transaction would cause the daily limit to be exceeded.                Bill Pay tries those transactions a second time, the                next business day. Bill Pay cancels payments that are                returned by DZ for exceeding the daily limit a second                time, and notifies customers with a new in-session                Notice and email Alert, which can be created for this                purpose.            -   The following daily limits in Table B hereinbelow are                applied by this process:

TABLE B Daily Funding Funding Account Tran Account Type Code LimitConsumer Credit Card 0473 $10,000 Business Credit Card 0476 $10,000BusinessLine^(SM) 0477 $50,000

-   -   If the transaction does not cause the daily limit to be        exceeded, then DZ attempts to memo-post the debit to the funding        account on the intra-day file. During this process, account        status and available credit are checked against the intra-day        file.        -   If the account is in good standing, i.e., open and not            delinquent, and there is sufficient available credit, DZ            memo-posts the debit on the intra-day file.        -   Transactions that have been successfully memo posted are not            included in the DZ-EPAY Card Funding Payments Status File            sent to Bill Pay, due to Bill Pay batch performance            considerations. Bill Pay sets those payments not returned by            DZ in the Status file to Paid status in the database.        -   If the account is open but delinquent, DZ returns the            transaction to Bill Pay in the DZ-EPAY Card Funding Payments            Status File with an appropriate return reason code, which            can be determined during design. Bill Pay tries the            transaction a second time, the next business day. If the            account is still delinquent, Bill Pay cancels the payment            and notifies the customer by sending a modified version of            certain notices #17N and Alert #17S.        -   If the account is in good standing but available credit is            not sufficient to cover the Bill Pay Advance, then DZ            indicates this with an appropriate return reason code, which            can be determined during design, when it returns the            transaction to Bill Pay in the DZ-EPAY Card Funding Payments            Status File. As with DDA-funded payments rejected due to            NSF, Bill Pay tries the transaction a second time, the next            business day. If the available credit is still insufficient,            then Bill Pay cancels the payment and notifies the customer            with a modified version of certain notices #17N and Alert            #17S.        -   If the account is in any status other than some form of            open, DZ indicates this in the DZ-EPAY Card Funding Payments            Status file with an appropriate return reason code, which            can be determined during design. Bill Pay cancels the            current day's payments from that funding account, with            customer notification and operational reporting as is            currently done for DDA-funded payments, using a modified            version of Notice #20N and Alert #20S.    -   Accepted and rejected Bill Pay Advances appear on the new        DZ-EPAY Card Funding Payments Accepted and Payments Rejected        Reports, respectively.    -   DZ sends all transactions that were successfully memo posted,        via NMIC/GV and DE, to the SOR for hard posting.        -   DZ sends Card Funding transactions to NMIC separately from            Bill Pay On-us Settlement transactions. This feed to NMIC is            a new track for the existing Bill Pay source.            -   One record is sent to FDR (via NMIC/GV, DE and FF) for                each successful Bill Pay Advance transaction. These                transactions must be force-posted at FDR, because the                corresponding funds have already been sent to the                payment processors.            -   DZ sums all transaction amounts destined for the Bill                Pay Wholesale DDA account and sends one record for the                net dollar amount to NMIC/GV for hard posting on Hogan.                Memo posting to the Wholesale DDA account is not                required and is not performed.        -   If the transaction is not returned, i.e. rejected, in the            DZ-EPAY Card Funding Payments Status File, Bill Pay sets the            payment status to paid and releases the payment to the            endpoint.            -   In the rare event that DZ is unavailable and Bill Pay                does not receive the Payments Status File in time, Bill                Pay Operations may decide to release the payments to the                endpoints in order to meet service levels, in which case                adjustments to customers' Card Funding accounts needs to                be made by Card Services Finance if it is subsequently                discovered that the transactions were not memo-posted                successfully. This situation, which could occur today                for DDA-funded payments if status is not received from                ODS/PAS, is expected to be virtually non-existent. As is                the case today, Bill Pay would set the internal status                to “paid conditional” rather than “paid” under this                condition.        -   Bill Pay produces the necessary reports to be used by OCS            Accounting and Control for reconciliation and settlement.            -   Rejected items are reported with the DZ-provided reason                code on Bill Pay settlement report #2, Hogan Rejects,                which is renamed to cover both Hogan and FDR SORs).            -   Canceled items are reported with the reason code                provided by DZ or Bill Pay, as applicable, on Bill Pay                settlement report #6, Cancelled Payments.        -   As they do today, OCS Accounting and Control manage the            movement of funds from the Bill Pay Wholesale DDA account to            each endpoint, using the agreed mechanism for each endpoint.            Customer funding sources are not visible to the endpoint and            therefore do not affect payment to the endpoint.

Bill Pay Advance Transaction Characteristics

Bill Pay Advances are coded as Purchase transactions for Consumer CreditCard accounts, and as Cash Advance transactions for Business Credit Cardand BusinessLine^(SM) accounts. The initial pricing strategy, e.g.interest rate, grace period, and transaction fee, for each type offunding account is documented in the subsections that follow. Pricingstrategies may change from time to time, based on business need.

The following regarding future changes should be appreciated:

-   -   Certain types of pricing strategy changes would require that new        tran codes be defined in the impacted systems (Bill Pay, DZ,        NMIC/GV and FF). These types of changes include, but are not        necessarily limited to: (1) changing the transaction type (from        Purchase to Cash Advance or vice versa), and (2) adding or        eliminating a per-transaction fee. Changes of this nature would        necessitate a systems development project to implement.    -   Changes within the pricing strategies being implemented with        this project, for example, changing a fee amount or allowing a        grace period, would not require new tran codes to be defined,        nor would a systems development project be needed. Changes of        this nature could be coordinated through Card Services' Systems        Management and Consulting (SMC) group.

As a point of information regarding no systems impact, Bill Pay advancetransactions are not subject to the card associations' chargeback anddispute rules because they do not involve an external merchant oracquirer. If they should meet the appropriate criteria, they would fallunder Reg Z, which defines the timeframes for reporting, responding toand resolving customer issues.

Bill Pay Advances from Consumer Credit Card.

The following table, Table C, describes the Bill Pay advance transactioncharacteristics for Consumer Credit Card:

TABLE C Funding Account Consumer Credit Card Transaction Type PurchaseTransaction Code/ 0473 - Bill Pay Purchase with Internal Description FeeTransaction Rate Standard Purchase (APR) (Merchandise) Rate Grace PeriodNo grace period Transaction Fee 2% (no minimum, no maximum) Rewards NoCredit Card Separate “Bill Pay Advance” Statement APR/ADB line underAPR/ADB Line “Purchase” category Credit Card To be determined duringStatement Design (40 characters Transaction available) Descriptor/OnlineAccount History Transaction Description

Bill Pay Advances from Business Credit Card.

The following table, Table D, describes the Bill Pay Advance transactioncharacteristics to be implemented for Business Credit Card:

TABLE D Funding Account Business Credit Card Transaction Type CashAdvance Transaction Code/ 0476 - Bill Pay Advance with InternalDescription Fee Transaction Rate Standard Cash Rate (APR) Grace PeriodNo grace period Transaction Fee 3%, minimum = $10, maximum = $75 RewardsNo Credit Card Include in existing APR/ADB Statement line under “CashAdvance” APR/ADB Line category Credit Card To be determined duringStatement Design (40 characters Transaction available) Descriptor/OnlineAccount History Transaction Description

Bill Pay Advances from BusinessLine^(SM).

The following table, Table E, describes the Bill Pay Advance transactioncharacteristics to be implemented for BusinessLine^(SM).

BusinessLine^(SM) accounts are identified by sub-product code 021 andaccount prefix 547464. (Note: Sub-product code 021 may be associatedwith account prefixes other than 547464, but account prefix 547464 isassociated with only sub-product code 021.)

TABLE E Funding Account BusinessLine^(SM) Transaction Type Cash AdvanceTransaction Code/ 0477 - Bill Pay Advance No Internal Description FeeTransaction Rate Standard Cash Rate (APR) Grace Period No grace periodTransaction Fee No transaction fee Rewards No Credit Card Include inexisting APR/ADB Statement line under “Cash Advance” APR/ADB Linecategory Credit Card To be determined during Statement Design (40characters Transaction available) Descriptor/Online Account HistoryTransaction Description

Batch Processing—Payment Exceptions

As is the case today, payments returned as unprocessed by the endpointsin subsequent processing cycles, e.g. through existing file exchangeprocesses in place with each endpoint, are included on the appropriateBill Pay reports.

Unlike DDA-funded payments, card-funded items returned by the endpointscannot be automatically credited back to the funding account. CardServices Finance are responsible for entering cardholder adjustmentsmanually pending possible future implementation of an automatedadjustment capability, including reversing transaction fees and financecharges as appropriate.

-   -   When payments are rejected or returned by the endpoint, Bill Pay        follows its existing automated processes to update the payment        status internally and as displayed on CUI and CSA.    -   With returned DDA-funded payments, where Bill Pay builds an        adjustment transaction to be sent via ACH, the payment status is        not updated until the adjustment is sent out. For returned        card-funded payments, Bill Pay must update the payment status        despite not creating an adjustment transaction.    -   Items returned by the endpoints are broken out on Bill Pay        reports and totaled separately by funding account type,        DDA-funded vs. card-funded. OCS business requirements for        reporting are documented separately.        -   Reports distinguish between returned payments, e.g. invalid            payee account entered, and adjustments, e.g. credit for            payee late fee due to endpoint error. Such requires no            changes to the existing process for returns, either for the            endpoints or for Bill Pay—specifically as relates to the            endpoint-Bill Pay interface. As indicated earlier in this            section, Bill Pay cannot generate adjustments for card            funding accounts as it can for checking accounts.        -   OCS Accounting and Control receive all reports; Card            Services Finance receive a copy of those reports listing            returned card-funded payments and endpoint adjustments. This            reporting is produced as part of the Bill Pay batch cycle,            using the same mechanisms as other settlement reporting.    -   The endpoints continue to remit, e.g. via wire transfer, ACH        credit, etc., the funds covering their returned payments to the        Bill Pay Wholesale DDA account.    -   OCS Accounting and Control moves funds to cover returned,        card-funded payments to Card Services Finance by means of a new        General Ledger Settlement account, which can be determined        during design and implementation.

It should be appreciated that the endpoints credit Wells Fargo with thepayment amount only. The funding for transaction fee and finance chargereversals are handled within Card Services.

Batch Processing—File Maintenance

Closed and Transferred Accounts

Each processing day, Bill Pay receives information from the System ofRecords (SORs) regarding closed and transferred funding accounts. Basedon this information, Bill Pay performs database updates, i.e. updatingfunding account numbers on scheduled payments, for transferred accounts,or canceling scheduled payments, for closed accounts.

In the current environment, funding accounts are limited to DDAaccounts; the status of those accounts is obtained from the SOR (Hogan)via ODS/PAS as follows:

-   -   Each processing day, Bill Pay sends ODS/PAS the “XREF” file,        which contains all active and recently closed DDA funding        accounts.    -   ODS/PAS checks these accounts against the SOR, and returns two        files—one containing closed accounts, and one containing        transferred accounts, i.e. “from” account number and “to”        account number.    -   Bill Pay updates the stored payment methods appropriately.

In the proposed environment, an additional file exchange process isimplemented between Bill Pay and FF (a Credit Card Hub), to obtaincredit card account closures and transfers from the FDR SOR.Conceptually, the process mirrors today's information exchange betweenBill Pay and ODS/PAS:

-   -   Each processing day, Bill Pay sends FF a file of all active Card        Funding accounts.    -   FF checks these accounts against the SOR, and returns file(s)        containing closed accounts and transferred (typically, reissued)        accounts. It should be appreciated that FF would notify Bill Pay        of relationship changes through a combination of “closed” and        “transferred” records. For example, removal of one signer from a        joint account would result in a “closed” record for the customer        being removed from the account, and a “transferred” record        indicating a new account number for the remaining customer.    -   Bill Pay updates the stored payment methods appropriately.

The criteria for determining closed and transferred account events aredefined and documented during the design phase of the project.

Closed Accounts—Impact on Pending Payments

Default Funding/Service Fee Account Closure.

As is the case today, Bill Pay customers with a closed or no longereligible default Funding/Service Fee Account have 30 calendar days toestablish a new default Funding/Service Fee Account. As a reminder, inboth the current and proposed environment, the default Funding/ServiceFee Account must be a checking account. After 30 days, if a defaultFunding/Service Fee Account is not established, the Bill Pay service iscanceled.

During this 30-day period, payments that are scheduled using a validfunding account continue to be made. After the 30-day period, if a newdefault funding account is not established and the service is canceled,then any outstanding payments are canceled. The customer receives theBill Pay Service Cancellation email alert (#23) listing both cancelledcard-funded and DDA-funded payments.

Card Funding Account Changes.

When notified by FE of a change in card funding account number, i.e.account transfer, Bill Pay updates the payment method in the databaseand scheduled payments to reflect the new account number. The customerreceives the Account Transfer notice (#21) reflecting the change. Itshould be appreciated that this notice includes “from” and “to” accountnumbers; these must be properly formatted based on the type of account.

When notified by FF that the card funding account is no longer valid,e.g. closed account, Bill Pay cancels pending payments and suspendsautomatic payments in the same way DDA-funded payments are handledtoday. The customer receives the Funding Account Status notice and emailalert (#20) listing the canceled payments.

Changes to Payee Eligibility

As indicated elsewhere herein, not all payees are eligible to be paidvia Card Funding. Bill Pay maintains a list of ineligible merchants,whose associated payees are ineligible for Card Funding.

The Bill Pay user interface (CUI and CSA) shall not display card fundingaccounts in the drop-down Payment Account list if the payee isineligible for Card Funding, thus preventing the customer fromscheduling a card-funded payment to an ineligible payee. In addition,should a user create a private payee that is subsequently scrubbed andmatched to an ineligible managed payee, the user interface shall preventcard-funded payments to that payee from being scheduled.

Because the list of ineligible merchants, i.e. payees, is subject tochange, card-funded payments may be stored for payees who, at the timeof scheduling, are eligible for Card Funding, but who later becomeineligible. Cases where this condition could occur include:

-   -   When an existing merchant is added to the list of ineligible        merchants, i.e. a merchant goes from being eligible for card        funding to ineligible, and card-funded payments have previously        been scheduled.    -   When a processing or timing problem occurs such that the user        interface is unaware that a payee has been set to ineligible and        allows a card-funded payment to be scheduled.    -   When a redirection occurs after card-funded payments have been        scheduled and the target merchant is ineligible, e.g. when a        private payee is redirected to an “on-us” (DZ) merchant).    -   When an internal (DZ-EPAY) payee is established but is        accidentally not added to the list of ineligible merchants.

When Bill Pay batch processing detects this condition its response shallbe to cancel pending card-funded payments and notify the customer viain-session Notice and email Alert.

Customer Notification of Changes in Terms

Customer is notified when Card Funding transaction terms and conditionsare scheduled to change.

-   -   Customers are notified of upcoming changes in terms by means of        a new in-session notice and targeted global email alert. The        notice and alert are sent at least 15 days in advance of the        effective date of the changes to all Bill Pay customers who have        eligible Card Funding accounts. The notice and alert is not sent        to customers who do not have Card Funding.    -   The effective date and specifics of the new terms are included        in the notice and alert.    -   Additionally, the notice and alert are resent to eligible        customers on the effective date of the change in terms or the        business day before, if the effective date falls on a        non-business day.

It should be appreciated that advance notice of any change in terms arerequired in order to allow time for developing and testing eachsituation-specific notification.

Customer Service

As is the case today, in the proposed environment, customers and OCSBankers access information on the status of payments through Bill Payin-session notices, email alerts, online status displays and onlinereports. OCS Bankers continue to use the Payee Audit History and PaymentDetail History screens in CSA as well.

-   -   Bill Pay debits are identified clearly on customer funding        account statements and online transaction history.    -   Customers can continue to contact Wells Fargo with questions or        issues regarding the Bill Pay service, either in person, by        phone, or online using a customer-submitted payment inquiry        form. OCS Bankers may also submit a payment inquiry form on the        customer's behalf. It should be appreciated that no changes to        the payment inquiry form are required for this project. Payment        inquiries are directed to OCS team members, who are responsible        for tracking cases using CCM OCTS, submitting adjustments, and        notifying customers of case resolution.

In the current environment, OCS representatives may submit debit andcredit adjustments to customer checking accounts as appropriate toresolve cases. Because they do not have the ability to processadjustments for Credit Card or BusinessLine^(SM) accounts, coordinationbetween OCS and Card Services are required to conduct research, resolveissues, and make adjustments to card accounts.

Processes are put in place so that each group may bring its expertise tobear in achieving the goal of “one and done,” i.e. resolving thecustomer's inquiry with a single call to Customer Service.

Payment Inquiries/Claims

Payment inquiries are submitted through CUI and CSA to the CCM OCTSclaims system. Two of the data elements that are passed to OCTS are theFunding Account and the routing and transit number (RTN) associated withthat Funding Account.

In today's environment, the Funding Account format is nnnnDDAaaaaaaaaaa,where nnnn is the 4-digit Hogan company ID number (COID), DDA is theproduct type, and aaaaaaaaaa is the 10-digit (Hogan DDA) account number.The RTN is the 9-digit bank routing number for the Funding Account.

OCS Bankers use the account information for research purposes. It ispossible that the account type, e.g. DDA for DDA-funded payments, andXCC, MC or VI for card-funded payments, drive the assignment of theclaim to specific work queues within Bill Pay Operations. OCS BusinessSpecifications for any changes to OCS systems are documented separately.

-   -   For claims on DDA-funded payments, no changes to the Bill        Pay-OCTS interface are required or desired.    -   For claims on card-funded payments, it is assumed that Bill Pay        passes Funding Account information to OCTS as follows:        -   The Funding Account number shall appear in the format            nnnnXXXaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, where nnnn is the 4-digit company            ID (0448 for credit card), XXX is the 3-character product            code (XCC, MC or VI—research required to determine how            2-character product codes are passed), and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa            is the 16-digit credit card account number.        -   The RTN shall be one of the following: 56590473x, 56590476x,            56590477x, 54480473x, 54480476x, or 54480477x—where x is a            check-digit (research required to determine values).

Fraud Prevention

No new fraud reports are required. Card-funded payments over $600 areincluded, along with DDA-funded payments, on the existing fraud reportproduced by the Sustaining Engineering team. No changes to the format ofthis report are required, beyond ensuring that Card Funding accountnumbers appear correctly.

It is expected that Card Services and OCS monitor the Bill Pay Advancesfor fraud, in the same manner as any other transaction.

Exemplary GUI Screens

FIGS. 6-10 are example screen mock-ups of the exemplary Bill Pay system.Specifically, FIG. 6 is an example of a screen shot showing a creditcard being chosen for the Payment Account. FIG. 7 is an example of ascreen shot showing the Edit Payment tab where the Payment Accountselection is a credit card. FIG. 8 is an example of a screen shotshowing a Status Update tab wherein the Financial Accounts includechecking and credit card accounts. FIG. 9 is an example of a screen shotshowing a Make Payment tab wherein the Payment Account and Amount columnincludes credit and checking accounts. And, FIG. 10 is an example of ascreen shot showing three credit sources for funding a Bill Paymentadvance.

It should be appreciated that when appropriate, error messages areunique for each funding account type. Example appropriate error messagesfor each type of funding source follow:

-   -   “Your payment amount cannot exceed $50,000 for a checking        account funded payment.”    -   “Your payment amount cannot exceed $10,000 for a consumer credit        card funded payment.”    -   “Your payment amount cannot exceed $10,000 for a business credit        card funded payment.”    -   “Your payment amount cannot exceed $50,000 for a        BusinessLine^(SM) account funded payment.”

Exemplary Settlement Reports

It should be appreciated that the following sample reports are examplebill pay reports showing where the reports are to be modified toincorporate bill pay advance functionality according to an embodiment ofthe invention.

Table F is an example layout of and instructions for a Bill ManagerFunding Account Transaction Report according to one embodiment of theinvention.

TABLE F Report #1: BILL MANAGER FUNDING ACCOUNT TRANSACTIONS REPORT Thereport contains all successful debits and credits - payments scheduledfor that date and successful retries and credits. Report 1 is organizedby BPP and has two parts, as do all the Settlement Reports, summarytotals, and a detail listing. Sorting 1. DDA funding first, then Cardfunding - subtotal, page break 2. Debits first, then Credits - subtotal,page break 3. Bill Payment Processor - subtotal, page break 4. Debits  a. Scheduled Payment Date - subtotal, page break   b. SSN   c. FundingAccount 5. Credits   a. Reason category (e.g., Credits: PaymentExceptions, Credits:    Returns, etc.) - subtotal, page break   b.Original Date Sent - subtotal, page break   c. SSN   d. Funding AccountTable of Contents The existing table of contents should be modified toinclude sections for DDA funding and Card funding. The format for bothshould be identical. Report Detail The fields to be included in thedetail are: SSN Customer Name Biller Biller ID Biller Account PaymentAmount Scheduled Payment Date (for debits only) or Original Date Sent(for credits only) Funding Account RTN (for DDA transactions only, notCard) Number of Tries (for debits only) The DZ EPAY section showspayments for which DZ has returned a 0000 Completion Code, indicatingthat the funding account and the payee account passed all edits, so thatDZ has sent the debit and the credit (via NMIC) to the WF posting SOR.Report Summary The first page of the report contains a summary matrixfor each BPP/endpoint with combined totals for DDA funding and then thesame matrix for each BPP with combined totals for Card funding. DDAFunding   Rows:     Debits     Credits: Returns & Adjustments    Credits: Payment Exceptions     Credits: All Other Credit Adj. OnLate Hogan NSFs   Columns:     Customers     Accounts     Transactions    Total $ Card Funding   Rows:     Debits     Credits: Returns &Adjustments     Credits: Payment Exceptions     Credits: All OtherCredit Adj. On Late DZ EPAY     Note that the three Credits rows willalways show all zeros for     DZ EPAY, since DZ will never generate aHogan credit.   Columns:     Customers     Accounts     Transactions    Total $

Table G is an example layout of and instructions for a Bill ManagerMetavante, relating to a report used to track activity that is conductedby a third party vendor, Metavante Corporation, to effect transactionsfor a WF ACH Reconciliation Report according to one embodiment of theinvention.

TABLE G Report #4: BILL MANAGER METAVANTE ACH RECONCILIATION REPORT Thisreport contains all monetary transactions listed in the MetavantePayment History/Exception File. There are 2 files received daily. Eachhas its own reconciliation report. Sorting 1. DDA funding first, thenCard funding - subtotal, page break 2. Debits first, then Credits, thenPayments Sent Not Acknowledged -  subtotal, page break 3. ScheduledPayment Date - subtotal, page break 4. Debits   a. SSN   b. FundingAccount 5. Credits   a. Reason category (e.g., Credits: PaymentExceptions, Credits:    Returns, etc.) - subtotal, page break   b.Original Date Sent - subtotal, page break   c. SSN   d. Funding Account6. Payments Sent Not Acknowledged   a. SSN   b. Funding Account Table ofContents The existing table of contents should be modified to includesections for DDA funding and Card funding. The format for both should beidentical. Report Detail The fields to be included in the detail are:SSN Customer Name Biller Biller ID Biller Account Payment AmountOriginal Date Sent Funding Account RTN (for DDA transactions only, notCard) Report Summary The first page of the report contains a summarymatrix for DDA funding and a summary matrix for Card funding. DDAFunding   Rows:     Debits     Debits for Late Hogan NSFs     Credits:Payment Exceptions     Credits: Payment Exceptions for Late Hogan NSFs    Credits: Returns/Adj     Credits: Return/Adj for Late Hogan NSFs    Payments Sent, Not Acknowledged   Columns:     Customers    Accounts     Transactions     Total $ Card Funding   Rows:    Debits     Debits for Late DZ EPAY NSFs     Credits: PaymentExceptions     Credits: Payment Exceptions for Late DZ EPAY NSFs    Credits: Returns/Adj     Credit: Return/Adj for Late DZ EPAY NSFs    Payments Sent, Not Acknowledged   Columns:     Customers    Accounts     Transactions     Total $

An Exemplary Technical Specification Introduction for FunctionalComponents of Batch Processing Impacted by Card Funding

The following sections address the technical specifications for eachFunctional Area of batch impacted by an exemplary Card Funding projectfor implementing bill pay advance with card funding according to theinvention.

Router

The Payment Router process is responsible for the creation of debit andend-point remittance instructions. When the router batch executes, ituses workflow tables to determine which payment instruction, and paymentinstruction status to use when creating the instructions for aparticular payment. It is based on these payment instructions thatpayments are debited and remittances sent to the Bill Pay endpoints

Bill Pay Card Funding introduces a new payment method Type for executingdebit transactions with DZ. It is referred to in this document to as theDZ-CC. This distinguishes the new workflow from the current DZ-EPAYworkflow that handles DDA payments to “On-Us” Payees. Payments will bemade using supported Credit-Card products to supported payees, whichwill be processed by the various Remittance processors; MVNT/CF/ECO.These payments will not be sent or processed by the DZ-EPAY processcomponent.

In the case of DDA funding, the Router creates debit and end-pointremittance instructions based on the (force-wf-id, pmtsta-id) parametersof a Payment, except in the case of DZ-EPAY where, only one instructioncorresponding to an On-Us payment is routed. All pending payments(pmtsta_id=1, pmt_state=NULL) are updated to debited status(pmtsta_id=101, pmt_state=I) and corresponding instructions are created.

DZCC Payment Outbound

The DZ-CC outbound payment component handles the compiling and sendingof debits to DZ. This batch gathers DZ-CC payment data, processes it forerrors (duplicates, payment amount, etc.) and formats it into a DZCCdebit file. Functionality is split between Java and PL/SQL, with fileformatting, handled by Java and DB processing handled by PUSQLprocedures. The shell script handles executing the batch and NDMtransport.

ACH OUT

Introduction

Unlike DDA-funded payments, card-funded items returned by the endpointscannot be automatically credited back to the funding account. CardServices Finance will be responsible for entering cardholder adjustmentsmanually (pending possible future implementation of an automatedadjustment capability), including reversing transaction fees and financecharges as appropriate.

The components of the ACH OUT process are:

RouteScheduled—This batch process is a stored procedure that looks forall payments with a start date that is equal to or before today and apayment status of ‘Scheduled’, and progresses those payments to apayment status of ‘In Process’.

RouteAllWFACH—This batch process is a Java program that takes eachpayment with a status of ‘In Process’ and creates a payment instructionin the database for the Hogan Debit with an instruction status of‘Open’. If a debit instruction has already been created for thispayment, the process does not do anything for that payment. This wouldoccur in the case that a debit instruction was rejected by Hogan in aprevious cycle but will get retried again.

GenWFACH—This batch process is a Java program (achout Batchlet) thatcollects all of the Hogan Debit payment instructions with an instructionstatus of ‘Open’, creates an ACH file that will get sent to ODS/PAS andmoves all of the instruction statuses for those payments to ‘Sent’.There is additional logic in this program which determines if there areany duplicate payments and cancels those duplicates, cancels anypayments with amounts that exceed the allowed limit, and batches thepayments to similar payees together in the ACH file. This program alsocollects all of the Hogan Credit payment instructions with a status of‘Open’ for inclusion in the file. These credit instructions representreturns, rejects, or adjustments to payments that have been sent to thevarious end points in prior cycles. Once a credit instruction isincluded in the file, its status is moved from ‘Open’ to ‘Sent’. Thisprocess will be modified to exclude Card Funded credits from being sentto Hogan for processing.

InvokeScheduler—This batch process is the fourth process and is notdirectly associated with sending the debit instruction to ODS/PAS butoccurs in the same workflow cycle. This process looks at all paymentswith a start date of today and has a recurring payment cycle associatedto it, and creates the next future scheduled payment for that recurringcycle. This process is a stored procedure as well.

Batch Processing—Payment Exceptions. Credit card funded payment returnsand adjustments should not be automatically sent to hogan by the ACHoutbound process, but the payment instruction status should be updatedin the same way as the DDA funded payments instruction status.

This will allow these “credits” to be reported (via SettlementReporting). It is from this reporting that manual processing of accountcrediting will be done.

DZCC Inbound

Introduction

The DZ-CC inbound payment status component handles parsing the paymentstatus file sent from DZ-CC to BillPay and updating BillPay paymentinformation accordingly. The procedure parses the DZCC status file,processes the rejects, and sends error alerts to customers.

Inputs and Outputs

The only inputs and outputs for the Card Funding DZ-CC implementationare flat files that are exchanged between BillPay and DZ-CC. There is aflat file sent from BillPay to DZ-CC that contains all paymentinformation, and there is a flat file sent from DZ-CC to BillPay thatcontains processing status for those payments.

A file will be sent to DZ for each processing period. In response, DZwill send a file with statuses to BillPay. The status file will includea response only for the payments that were rejected by DZCC. The recordsin both files need not be ordered in any way for DZCC or BME to be ableto process them.

ODS/PAS Xref Functional Specifications

The purpose of the existing ODS/PAS Xref batch is to query informationpertaining to the current BP active members and their DDA accounts (SSN,DDA account number, member status, member id, brand id) from the BPdatabase and send these data in an outbound cross reference file toODS/PAS (Hogan). This file is used by ODS/PAS to update other WellsFargo system, such as CIS and STS, so that the Bill Pay customerinformation is synchronized with the Hogan information. This batch runsevery day at 18:00 (6 PM), from Monday to Friday, except businessholidays.

ODS/PAS Xref Steps Affected by Credit Card Funding Logic Walk Through:

TABLE H Steps Descriptions Layers . . . . . . . . .  9-12 The storedprocedure P_XREF_PKG.P_XREF queries the PL/SQL database for all activeBill Pay members' SSNs and their valid payment method account numbers.For Credit Card Funding project, the stored procedure needs to beenhanced with an additional filtering condition (“where” clause) to onlyquery for DDA checking accounts (Payment Method Type ID is 0). Thestored procedure returns a record for each SSN-Account Number pairconsisting of the following cross reference information for eachrecord: 1) SSN 2) Account Numbers (only DDA checking) associated with the above SSN.  The previous code that checks if PM_ACCOUNT_NO  valueis NULL and assign the value  “0114DDA0000000000” will be removed sincecurrently  there is a NOT NULL constraint on this field. 3) MemberStatus associated with the above SSN. The  value of this field isassigned by the logic described in  Table 1: ODS/PAS Xref Member StatusStates, in Appendix 4.1 4) Member ID associated with the above SSN 1)Brand ID associated with the above SSN . . . . . . . . . 15 The shellscript checks if the batchlet execution return status is Shell “0” forsuccess script 16-17 If the batchlet return status is “53”, which meansthat there are Shell records rejected by the batchlet and not outputted,the shell script script logs a failure message in the payflow.log andcontinue to NDM the outbound xref file to endpoint. 18 If the batchletreturn status is not “53” or “0”, the shell script logs Shell a failuremessage in the payflow.log and terminate execution at script this point.19 If the batchlet return status is “0” for success, the shell scriptlogs a success message in the payflow.log. 20-21 The shell script nowchecks if the current time is after 23:30. If Shell before, it NDMs thexref.out file to Hogan,. If the equal or after, script something musthave gone wrong, and the outbound file is not NDM. The ODS/PAS Xrefbatch process ends after this.

Stored Procedures

The PUSQL stored procedure handles all database logic for querying thenecessary cross-reference information to output to the output file. ThePL/SQL stored procedure for the ODS/PAS Xref batch resides within thepackage P_XREF_PKG.

For Credit Card Funding project, the stored procedure for the ODS/PASXref batch must add logic to filter out credit card accounts and onlyreturn DDA accounts from the query (CBPAYMENT_METHOD.PMTYP_ID equals 0).

Additionally, the PUSQL package P_COMMON_CONST_PKG will also need to bemodified with additional constants for the PMTYP_ID values. Theseconstants will be used by the P_XREF stored procedure to implement thefilters stated above.

FF Xref Functional Specifications

The purpose of the existing Billing Xref batch is to query informationpertaining to the current BP active members and their DDA default feefunding accounts (SSN, DDA account number, member status, member id,brand id) from the BP database and send this information in an outboundcross reference file to ODS/PAS, similar to the ODS/PAS Xref batch. Thisbatch is executed on the 2nd, 7th, and 17th business day of each month,starting at 2:00 AM. On these business days, ODS/PAS will use the crossreference information to send back combined balance files containing thecombined balance of the accounts of each active BP member, which will beprocessed by the Combined Balance batch. Also, on the 17th business day,ODS/PAS will send back a VIP/EMP file containing the flags indicatingwhether an active BP customer should be waived as a VIP or WF employeecustomer, which will be processed by the VIP/Emp batch.

In high level, the changes made to the FF Xref batch to accommodate theCredit Card Funding project that differs from the ODS/PAS Xref includes:

-   -   New crontab entry to execute the FF Xref batch    -   Reuse the same Xref batchlet:        -   Need to pass in flags from the shell script        -   Add switch logic in the Batchlet code to reads this flag to            determine whether to execute ODS/PAS Xref, Billing Xref, or            FF Xref logic        -   If executing in FF Xref mode, write logs into a new log4j            file by using the /config/fflog4j.xml file.    -   Reuse the same P_XREF_PKG.P_XREF stored procedure as ODS/PAS        Xref.        -   Add a switch to filter out DDA accounts and return only            credit accounts if executing in FF Xref mode.

FF Xref Step-By-Step Logic Walk Through

TABLE I Steps Descriptions Layers 0 Crontab entry calls the FF Xrefshell script, ffxref, at 18:00 (Mon-Fri) Crontab 1 The ffxref shellscript checks if today's date is a business Shell holiday. script Iftoday is a holiday, the FF Xref batch process is terminated. If today isnot a holiday, then . . . 2 The shell script archives the previous/Shell opt/bpdata/ff/outbound/FFXref.out outbound file, and it thenscript execute the FF Xref Batchlet 3 The batchlet checks the“XREF_FLAG_PARAM” variable. Batch If the variable is assigned “Billing”,the logic for Billing Xref Frame process is executed. work Otherwise, .. . 4 The batchlet checks the “XREF_FLAG_PARAM” variable. Batch If thevariable is assigned “FF”, the logic for FF Xref process is Frameexecuted. work If the variable is not provided, then the logic for theODS/PAS Xref process is executed. 5 The batchlet processes the fileconfiguration for the FF Xref. Batch The backend processing logic forthis step is transparent to this Frame batchlet and is handled by theBatch Framework support classes. work . . . . . . . . .  9-12 The storedprocedure P_XREF_PKG.P_XREF queries the PL/SQL database for all activeBill Pay members' SSNs and their valid payment method account numbers.For Credit Card Funding project, the stored procedure will only queryfor credit accounts and filters out the DDA accounts. The storedprocedure returns a record for each SSN-Account Number pair consistingof the following cross reference information for each record: 1) SSN 2)Account Numbers (only credit acct.) associated with the  above SSN. 3)Member Status associated with the above SSN. The  value of this field isassigned by the logic described in  Table 1: FF Xref Member StatusStates, in Appendix 4.1 4) Member ID associated with the above SSN 5)Brand ID associated with the above SSN . . . . . . . . . 15 The shellscript checks if the batchlet execution return status is Shell “0” forsuccess script 16-17 If the batchlet return status is “53”, which meansthat there are Shell records rejected by the batchlet and not outputted,the shell script script logs a failure message in the payflow.log andcontinue to NDM the outbound xref file to endpoint. 18 If the batchletreturn status is not “53” or “0”, the shell script logs Shell a failuremessage in the payflow.log and terminate execution at script this point.19 If the batchlet return status is “0” for success, the shell scriptlogs a success message in the payflow.log. 20-21 The shell script nowchecks if the current time is after 23:30. If Shell before, it NDMs theFFXref.out file to FF (FDR). If the equal or script after, somethingmust have gone wrong, and the outbound file is not transmitted. The FFXref batch process ends after this.

FF Transfer Functional Specifications

The processing logic of the existing ODS/PAS Transfer batch and the FFTransfer batch are very similar. A design decision has been made toreuse majority of the existing implementation and components of theODS/PAS Transfer batch to develop the new FF Transfer batch. The FFTransfer batch, will require a new crontab entry, but only minimal logicchanges will be made to the existing shell script and java batchletcode. No changes are required to the existing PL/SQL stored procedure.

Additionally, the Transfer batch and the Closure batch both share thesame shell script. This section of the document will not contain detailsof the Closure batch.

The design of the FF Transfer batch will be broken into four maincomponents, which are composed of:

-   -   Crontab entry    -   Unix shell script    -   Batchlet and its corresponding support Java classes    -   PL/SQL package and stored procedure.

The following activity diagram depicts the sub-portion of the logicalinteractions of the FF Transfer batch that differs between the existingODS/PAS Transfer batch for the Credit Card Funding project.

FF Transfer Step-By-Step Logic Walk Through:

TABLE J Steps Descriptions Layers 0 For FF Transfer batch, crontab entrycalls the Transfer and Crontab Closure shell script, closeandtransfer,at 5:30AM (Tues-Sat). An input parameter “-f” is passed into the shellscript to signal the Transfer batch process to execute the FF Transferbatch logic. 1 The shell script checks if today's date is a businessholiday. Shell If today is a holiday, the Transfer batch process isterminated. script If today is not a holiday, then . . . 2 The Transferbatch will loop and check every 10 minutes from Shell the current timeuntil 10:30AM for FF Transfer batch whether the script inbound transferfile has arrived through NDM. The shell script first calculates the loopcounter that the batch needs to check for the incoming file. Loop Basedon the counter calculated in step 2, the batch loops Shell through thiscounter. script 3 The program checks if the transfer file has arrivedfrom endpoint. Shell If the transfer file has not arrived, skip to step4. script If the transfer file has arrived, the program logs a successmessage in the payflow.log and executes the Transfer batchlet. Skip tostep 5. 4 The program checks if the process has iterate past the loopShell counter. script If the loop counter has not been passed, the nextiteration starts again after 10 minutes of wait time. If the loopcounter has been passed, the program logs a failure message inpayflow.log and terminates the batch process. The program ends here. 5The Transfer batchlet first obtain the FF file configuration to Batchparse the inbound file. Frame work 6 The batchlet also gets the systemID value stored in the batch- Batch config.xml file. NOTE: A newffSystemId = 71 is being added for Frame the FF Transfer batch. work 7The batchlet prepares the ParserInput object to parse the Batch inboundfile, using the file configuration obtained above. Frame work 8 Thebatchlet prepares all the SQL wrapper objects and setting Batch thesystem ID in these objects where necessary Frame work Loop The batchletparses the inbound file and loops through each Batch transfer record.Frame work 9 The batchlet gets the old acct#, new acc#, and ssn for thisBatch record being iterated from the FF Transfer inbound file. Framework 10  The batchlet gets the payment methods associated with the ssnBatch and old acct# obtained above from the CBPAYMENT_METHOD Frame andCBMEMBER tables: work Old Payment Method ID (old pmID) Member ID (memID)New Payment Method ID (new pmID) Payment Method Default Flag (pmDefaultflag) New Balance ID (new balance ID) The payment method nick name(pmName) and new account code is also calculated by the batchlet fromthe database values obtained. Loop The batchlet loops through the row(s)of keys obtained above Batch Frame work 11  The batchlet gets the keys'values for this record being iterated Batch Frame work 12-14 Thebatchlet inserts a new payment method into the Batch CBPAYMENT_METHODtable for this transfer record being Frame iterated, based on the newpmID, pmName, new acct#, old work pmID, new acct_code and memIDinformation obtained previously. In the case of inserting a new paymentmethod, the value of the pm_sub_prod_code database field will be copiedfrom the old account and inserted into the new payment method. If thepmDefault flag of the transferred account is equal to “1” (meaning thisaccount is a default fee funding account), then the batchlet alsoupdates the default fee funding account number to the new transferredaccount in the CBMEMBER table. 15-16 If a SQLException occurs duringsteps 12-14 above, the batchlet Batch SQLException uses the ssn and newacct# values to obtains a new pmID from Frame the CBPAYMENT_METHOD. workIn case there is an existing payment method with the same new acct# inthe DB, the batchlet sets the status of the new pmID obtained in theprevious sentence to “APPROVED” and updates its pmDefault flag and newacct_code accordingly. No action will be taken on the pm_sub_prod_codewhen transferring to an existing payment method.

ODS/PAS Closure Migration & FF Closure Functional Specification

Change component—Closure Batchlet Migration:

-   -   The script in the cron directory will now call the new batchlet        rather than the NetDynamic module.    -   The original logic has a check that sends out alerts and notices        if a customer has a valid email. So the customer either receives        both the alert and the notice, or nothing at all. For each        closure record, modification has been made so that both alert        and notice records would always be created because email is now        a required field in the Bill Pay UI and database.

Change component—FF Closure:

-   -   A new inbound FFClosure.in file will be sent from FF (FDR), the        format is different than the ODS/PAS Closure inbound file in        that the CC account number is 23 characters in length as opposed        to 17 characters for a DDA account.    -   A new filespec ffclosure-file-spec.xml is defined for the        batchlet layer to use for FF Closure.    -   Same batchlet process would be used, with a configuration switch        to specify that the FF filespec needs to be used for FF Closure        situation.    -   The same shell script will be used, but with a configuration        parameter passed in from a new closureandtransfer cron entry        (for FF scenario). The configuration parameter is passed into        the execution of the Closure batchlet to set an option parameter        so that the batchlet can choose between FF Closure or ODS        Closure logic.    -   Based on the shell parameter, different NDM calls are used to        get the FFClosure.in or Closure.in files.    -   The shell script will also write a different successful/failure        alarm messages into the payflow.log file for the FF Closure        (versus ODS/PAS Closure) batch.

Introduction

The ODS/PAS Closure batch's job is to process the inbound closure file,where each line of record contains an SSN of a Bill Pay customer and anassociated payment method that needs to be closed. For each line ofrecord in the file, the batch will close the payment method, and cancelany payments (including automatic and recurring) that is linked to theclosed account.

The new account closure batch program composes of one Java batchletclass, supporting classes, and PL/SQL procedures. The Java classeshandle parsing the input files, and process the data via SQL and PL/SQL.The program gathers DB information, processes the data, and then updatespayment method and payment related tables with new statuses and createsnew alerts.

Billing Xref Functional Specification

In high level, the changes made to the Billing Xref batch to accommodatethe Credit Card Funding project includes:

-   -   Convert and invoke the migrated code using the Batch Framework        platform. No longer use the existing Neydynamics code.    -   The Xref batchlet will log into the batchlet execution        information to the same log file as in NetDynamics environment        /opt/bpdata/billing/xref/writeBillingCRF.log file    -   Adding a filtering condition to the P_XREF_PKG.P_PRICING_XREF        stored procedure to filter out credit accounts and return only        DDA accounts.    -   Change the select statement of the P_XREF_PKG.P_PRICING_XREF        stored procedure to use SYSDATE, instead of P_WFSYSDATE.

Billing Xref Steps Affected by Credit Card Funding Logic Walk Through:

TABLE K Steps Descriptions Layers . . . . . . . . . 10-11 The storedprocedure PL/SQL P_XREF_PKG.P_PRICING_XREF queries the database for allactive Bill Pay members' SSNs and their valid payment method accountnumbers. For Credit Card Funding project, the stored procedure needs tobe enhanced with an additional filtering condition (“where” clause) toonly query for DDA accounts (Payment Method Type ID is 0). The storedprocedure returns a record for each SSN- Account Number pair consistingof the following cross reference information for each record: 1. SSN 2.Account Numbers (only DDA) associated with  the above SSN 3. MemberStatus associated with the above SSN.  The value of this field isassigned by the logic  described in Table 2: Billing Xref Member Status States, in Appendix 4.2 4. Member ID associated with the above SSN 1.Brand ID associated with the above SSN . . . . . . . . . 14 The shellscript checks if the batchlet execution return Shell status is “0” forsuccess script 15-16 If the batchlet return status is “53”, which meansthat Shell there are records rejected by the batchlet and not scriptoutputted, the shell script logs a failure message in the payflow.logand continue to NDM the outbound xref file to endpoint. 17 If thebatchlet return status is not “53” or “0”, the shell Shell script logs afailure message in the payflow.log and script terminate execution atthis point. 18 If the batchlet return status is “0” for success, theshell script logs a success message in the payflow.log. 19-20 The shellscript now checks if the current time is after Shell 4:50. If before, itNDMs the xref.out file to Hogan,. If script the equal or after,something must have gone wrong, and the outbound file is not NDM. TheBilling Xref batch process ends after this.

GetPM

Design

Filtering the Credit-Card Payment Methods.

The current GetPM batchlet process assigns a Service Fee account if thecustomer does not specify a default Funding/Service Fee Account within45 days of enrolling in Bill Pay. An eligible checking account issystematically assigned. The get_pm (get payment method) process will bemodified to allow only checking accounts to be assigned as the defaultFunding/Service Fee account. The update (SQL script) process willimplement this business rule.

Note: While there are changes to the Gateway.jar to avoid de-linkingaccount information, the APS Service interface will remain the same forthe getPM component, requiring no changes to the getPM code. The changeis to the Gateway jar file it references.

Ineligible Payees

Overview

The ineligible_merchant package contains the functions used forcanceling and suspending payments scheduled with Credit Card Fundingaccounts to payees that are ineligible for payment from these accounts.The package contains two low-level procedures: cancel_one_payment andsuspend_one_payment, and two high-level procedures: cancel_all_paymentsand suspend_all_payments. The high-level procedures will be used when anew merchant is added to the ineligible merchant list and will bescheduled weekly as a batch process (schedule TBD).

Data Mart Extract

Introduction

The purpose of the existing DataMart (Monthly/Weekly) process is toretrieve information pertaining to DDA accounts from the Bill Paydatabase and send this information as flat files to the DataMart system.

Data Mart Monthly/Weekly Scripts Design Overview

DataMart Scripts (both Monthly and Weekly) runs from the crontab.extracts data from Bill Pay database on monthly and weekly basisgenerates flat files to be sent to DataMart on monthly and weekly basis.These flat files are tab-delimited and are not fixed character positionfiles.

The purpose of the existing DataMart (Monthly/Weekly) scripts were toquery information from the Bill Pay database and send these data as flatfiles to DataMart. These flat files were used by DataMart to load theirdatabase. The DataMart monthly script (datamart_monthly.ksh) runs fromcrontab on 4th calendar day of every month at 08:00 am PST. This wrapperscript calls several sql scripts to generate monthly flat files. And theDataMart weekly script (datamart_weekly.ksh) runs from crontab on everyMonday at 01:00 am PST and calls several sql scripts to generate weeklyflat files.

To accommodate the requirements of the Credit Card Funding project, theexisting DataMart Scripts will require additional changes to allow it toinclude card funding transactions along with DDA transactions and alsoto include sub-product code information along with funding accountnumber, since it currently does not contain any logic to includesub-product code information. This requires addition of new columnsub-product code in the DataMart tables.

Settlement Reports

The purpose of this document is to provide the requirements for new orrevised Bill Pay Settlement Reports for the Bill Pay Card Fundingproject. This document describes the changes that Bill Pay needs toimplement on the existing settlement reports' stored programs and ontables that these programs.

Bill Pay Environment

Existing settlement reports are focused on customer deposit accounts oron Bill Pay Processors.

Focused on customer DDAs:

-   -   BMRpt01—Bill Pay Hogan Transactions Report    -   BMRpt02—Bill Pay Hogan Rejects Report    -   BMRpt03—Bill Pay Late Hogan Rejects Report    -   BMRpt05—Bill Pay All Transactions Report    -   BMRpt06—System Cancelled Payments Report

Focused on Bill Pay Processors (BPPs):

-   -   BMRpt04—Bill Pay: Metavante ACH Reconciliation Report    -   BMRpt07—Remittance for Processors Sent and Unsent Report    -   BMRpt08—Bill Pay ECO Reconciliation Report    -   BMRpt09—Bill Pay: Metavante Sponsor Settlement File Report    -   BMRpt10—Bill Pay: CheckFree Reconciliation Report    -   BMRpt11—Bill Pay DZ EPAY Reconciliation Report

Proposed Bill Pay Advance Environment

Add card-funded transactions to the existing settlement reports andrename them to reflect the new content. Expand the summary tables at thebeginning of each report to include subtotals by funding account type(i.e., DDA and Card).

Focused on customer funding accounts:

-   -   BMRpt01—Bill Pay Funding Account Transactions Report    -   BMRpt02—Bill Pay Funding Account Rejects Report    -   BMRpt03—Bill Pay Late Funding Account Rejects Report    -   BMRpt05—Bill Pay All Transactions Report    -   BMRpt06—Bill Pay System Cancelled Payments Report

Focused on Bill Pay Processors (BPPs):

-   -   BMRpt04—Bill Pay Metavante ACH Reconciliation Report (2 reports)    -   BMRpt07—Bill Pay Remittance for Processors Sent and Unsent        Report    -   BMRpt08—Bill Pay ECO Reconciliation Report (3 reports)    -   BMRpt09—Bill Pay Metavante Sponsor Settlement File Report    -   BMRpt10—Bill Pay CheckFree Reconciliation Report (2 reports)    -   BMRpt11—Bill Pay DZ EPAY Reconciliation Report

The Bill Pay Settlement Reports, their associated reporting tables, andproposed new report names are listed in the following table.

TABLE L Report Current Report Name New Report Name Bill Pay's ReportingTable BMRPT01 Hogan Transaction Report Funding Account TransactionsReport WFRPT_HOGAN_DEBITS BMRPT02 Hogan Rejects Report Funding AccountRejects Report WFRPT_HOGAN_REJECTS BMRPT03 Late Hogan Rejects ReportLate Funding Account Rejects Report WFRPT_LATE_REJECTS BMRPT04 MetavanteACH Reconciliation Metavante ACH Reconciliation Report WFRPT_PMT_RECONReport BMRPT05 All Transactions Report All Transactions ReportWFRPT_SCHEDULED_PMTS BMRPT06 System Cancelled Payments System CancelledPayments Report WFRPT_UNPROCESSED_PMTS Report BMRPT07 Remittance ForProcessors Sent Remittance For Processors Sent And UnsentWFRPT_PMT_TO_REMIT And Unsent Report Report BMRPT08 ECO ReconciliationReport ECO Reconciliation Report WFRPT_ECO_RECON BMRPT09 MetavanteSponsor Settlement Metavante Sponsor Settlement File ReportWFRPT_MVNT_SETTLEMNT File Report BMRPT10 Checkfree Reconciliation ReportCheckfree Reconciliation Report WFRPT_CF_SETTLEMENT (For AM report only)WFRPT_PMT_RECON (AM & PM) BMRPT11 DZ EPAY Reconciliation Report DZ EPAYReconciliation Report WFRPT_PMT_RECON

Accordingly, although the invention has been described in detail withreference to particular preferred embodiments, persons possessingordinary skill in the art to which this invention pertains willappreciate that various modifications and enhancements may be madewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the claims that follow.

1. A computer-implemented method for a bill pay advance with interchangepush transaction, comprising the steps of: a customer, having a bill payadvance account in a bill pay system and any of: an affiliated creditcard account with a billing cycle in a credit card system having acredit card processor and an affiliated debit card account in a debitcard system having a debit card processor, instructing a bill pay systemto make a payment of a specified amount to a payee using any of: thecustomer's credit card account and the customer's debit card account;responsive to the customer instructing the bill pay system to make thepayment using any of: the credit card account and the debit cardaccount, the bill pay system sending transaction related information toan associated partner processing service; responsive to receiving saidtransaction related information, said payee requesting payment from anassociated payee financial institution; responsive to receiving saidrequest for payment, said payee financial institution remitting paymentto said payee and remitting interchange fees through a coupled cardassociation network to any of: an associated issuer of said customercredit card account and an associated issuer of said customer debit cardaccount as appropriate.
 2. The computer implemented method of claim 1,wherein the payee remits a bill to the customer.
 3. The computerimplemented method of claim 1, wherein said instructing a bill paysystem to make a payment of a specified amount to a payee is for any of:a onetime payment and a periodic payment.
 4. The computer implementedmethod of claim 1, further comprising the step of: the customerremitting payments and deposits comprising any of: credit card billpayments, credit card interest, fees to the credit card system, anddebit card account deposits.
 5. The computer implemented method of claim1, wherein for eligible transactions, a debit card is designated as adefault when the interchange push method is made an option.
 6. A hybridbill payment system for processing bill payments on a computer network,the system comprising: a first option for a customer having a creditcard account, wherein said first option offers a bill pay advanceprocess to the customer, whereby the customer is allowed to pay billsfrom the customer's credit card account; and a second option for acustomer having any of: a credit card account and a debit card account,wherein said second option offers a bill pay advance with interchangepush process to the customer, whereby the customer can select to pay fora bill from any of: the customer's credit card account and debit cardaccount.
 7. The system of claim 6, further comprising: a third optioncomprising a hybrid offering both of said first option and said secondoption in parallel with customer choice and intelligent routingmechanisms.
 8. A hybrid bill payment system for processing bill paymentson a computer network, the system comprising: a first option for acustomer having a bill pay service acceptable account, wherein saidfirst option offers a bill pay advance process to the customer andwherein the system is configured such that the customer is allowed topay bills from the customers bill pay service acceptable account; and asecond option for a customer having any of: a credit card account and adebit card account.